I love Datsyuk, his one the reasons that this team has been so successful. First of all we can't resign him now because he still has two years left, we'd have to wait until July 1st, 2013. Signing him threw out 2018 is not one that I'm for tho, I'm not a huge fan on 4-5 year contracts after the age of 35. Datsyuk is 34 and by the time his contract is out he will be 36. I would much rather see a 2 year deal when his contracts over and afterwards as time progresses go with 1 year deals just like we did with Lidstrom. Would be much more cap friendly for us.

I love Datsyuk, his one the reasons that this team has been so successful. First of all we can't resign him now because he still has two years left, we'd have to wait until July 1st, 2013. Signing him threw out 2018 is not one that I'm for tho, I'm not a huge fan on 4-5 year contracts after the age of 35. Datsyuk is 34 and by the time his contract is out he will be 36. I would much rather see a 2 year deal when his contracts over and afterwards as time progresses go with 1 year deals just like we did with Lidstrom. Would be much more cap friendly for us.

Well, there are 2-ways of looking at it. If you extend him to 40 years of age this time next year, you would think you'd get a pretty cap friendly hit because of term and age. If you sign him to a higher per year cap hit when only signing him to a 2 year deal, what happens after 2 years if he performs at a very high level and you then need to re-sign him again for another 2 years? You could end up paying more in that scenario. That said, the odds are the other way around and he likely get more on a 4-5 year deal than going shorter term because skills will likely keep diminishing (just going by norms here, not saying it is fact). I highly doubt they'd want to sign him to a contract that keeps him here until 40 anyway, since there is a good chance he'd retire before then and they'd still be stuck with the cap hit.

Can't sign a new contract until the last year of the current one. Datsyuk has two years left, so no, Kenny can not yet sign him to a new contract.

Whew, see, there you go! Glad we got that misconception cleared up, but it does make you wonder what percentage of people dumping on Holland this offseason is based on outright inaccuracies or impossibilities. (Including, by the way, that there was any sales pitch or reasonable structuring of money that could've talked either Parise or Suter into playing for Detroit next year).

Seriously, the pendulum has swung WAY too far in the opposite direction on Holland. Four Stanley Cups, turning super-talented players like Yzerman, Lidstrom, Datsyuk, and Zetterberg into Winged Wheel "lifers", and pulling a Hossa signing out of a hat in a season when nobody even dreamed about it....and then one offseason of relative inactivity/bad luck and the man is absolute garbage. I don't get.

The ONLY guy this offseason that I thought we could reasonably get and who seemed interested in playing here that disappointed me was Alex Semin. I was bummed to see him sign a short-term deal somewhere else, when it wasn't even certain if that was possible.

But given what we know now about the lockout, and the fact that another major CBA shakeup (with possible revisions to the salary cap and even retroactive adjustments to contracts) seems very likely, I'm somewhat glad go around the free agent market making it rain. Are we as strong as we've been in recent years? No. Do I think we still have a very good team with quality players at goaltending, defense, and forward? Absolutely I do.

Besides the fact that he can't negotiate a new contract yet....Datsyuk has made it clear that he doesn't want to be playing at 40 and that he wants to play in Russia again before the end of his career so to answer your question...No, Kenny can't lock him into the 2017-2018 season and it will have nothing to do with his ability as a GM if he can't.

"Everything he does is exciting to watch.”-Holmstrom describes Datsyuk

Besides the fact that he can't negotiate a new contract yet....Datsyuk has made it clear that he doesn't want to be playing at 40 and that he wants to play in Russia again before the end of his career so to answer your question...No, Kenny can't lock him into the 2017-2018 season and it will have nothing to do with his ability as a GM if he can't.

True. It's unbelievable that he is already 34 years old. Seems like just yesterday he was our promising rookie back in '02. He'll play here for a few more years and head to Russia to play the remainder of his hockey career. I'm thinking 2 or 3 more years of Pavel Datsyuk in Detroit. That is a scary thought.

"Ice hockey is a form of disorderly conduct in which the score is kept."

True. It's unbelievable that he is already 34 years old. Seems like just yesterday he was our promising rookie back in '02. He'll play here for a few more years and head to Russia to play the remainder of his hockey career. I'm thinking 2 or 3 more years of Pavel Datsyuk in Detroit. That is a scary thought.

Definitely a huge downer even thinking about that, it's a big part of why I'm extra upset about the lockout because I know his career won't last forever and I'd like to see as much of him as possible until then. Either way, Dats is a loyal guy and as long as he's in the NHL I think he will play for Detroit. It won't be Kenny's fault when he leaves.

"Everything he does is exciting to watch.”-Holmstrom describes Datsyuk